, 1887-09-02
THE FASHION OF TIPS.
HOTEL RULES ARE HELPLESS TO
PREVENT THE IMPOSITION.

How American Baksheesh Is Extracted
at summer Resorts-TIpping Confined
to Feeling waiters-A Tip to the Public.
Outragos of the System.
The American vacation is rendered I'M
endurable by the fashion, folly and science
OF tips. Harvard boys who have not
millionaires for fathers stand behind the
chairs of done up and played out tourists,
expecting to pay their term bills with
vacation service n tips. The tips of a
handsome and polite waiter are SO large
that his wages are a matter of no account.
Hotel rules are helpless to prevent the i'm
position. You must tip, or wait and see
your ncighbor served, not only first, but
better served. These are the two things
an American cannot do. His first avs
Of existence are that he is the equal OF any
man and that he is in a hurry. He can
establish his equality and get his break
fast promptly by tipping a quarter, and
he does 1t. OF late the walters in the
summer resorts have improved the system
by exchanging places. The wretched III
list, who has literally feed one napkin
knight for his breakfast, finds behind his
chair Mt dining a fresh untipped fellow
and at supper another. He must fee the
whole retinue II he remains long enough.
Or, If he fees to another resort, he will
find another hungry crowd, and he must
begin the same routine afresh. American
baksheesh is not demanded, but 1t is new
ertheless enforced.
THE SCIENCE OF IT.
The science of tips is to give the exact
amour that will secure the reputation of
liberality and wealth, but avoid that of
s%oftness. The soft is bled, but not served.
Boots understands him, and makes him
come Town handsomely for half O shine.
1t Is a very delicate matter, that the trav-
eler learns in due time to adjust himself
to with nice precision. There are half dol
lar hotels, where to offer a quarter would
secure only contempt and neglect; and
there are quarter dollar resorts where to
tip Il half dollar would be to exhibit your
self easy to be heeced.
American tipping, however, is not con-
fined to fleeing walters. There is a special
public to be fed on all occasions that
bring a man before the public. Emerson,
shortly before his death, called for his
daughter in great distress. my dear
daughter, - he said, ''this woman wants a
pair of my pantaloons. Really, Elleni-
welI-you will have to see to it, Ellen
found it was a collector of poets' breaches,
coats. shirts n other garments, out of
which she proposed to create a fire rug.
Really, what right has a man to be q
philosopher who can not ~philosophically
tip n pair of pantaloons to every collector
Longfellow actually gave the woman q
shirt, Whittier a drab coat; Lowell had
pulled off his scarf; and now why should
not Emerson spare his unmentionablesf
With what pride and delight shall we
imagine that thrifty Puritan dame sitting
before her fire mt pointing out to visitors
the salient points of her rug?
A LITTLE TOO MUCH.
Longfellow on one occasion received
from q lady 100 cards, with the request
that he would write his name on each, as
the lady desired to present them to her
guests at a Longfellow dinner party. The
poet consid red the tip more than the
lady, who was IA stranger, was entitled to.
Most OF those who constitute the great
public IN be satisfied with a tip in the
way OF n handshake. This no mar may
refuse Mt his peril, be he poet, postmaster
or president. Our present chief executive
has u vast capacity in this regard. His
handshake never reaches above the elbow.
1t does not disturb the equilibrium OF his
nerves, He rather fattens on tips; where
as to shake hands meant with Lincoln an
drain of his vitality.
Funeral tips and wedding tips are the
two supreme outrages Of the system.
There is in them nj compensation what
ever Why honor to the dead should re-
qu!rc q poor man to mortgage his house to
pay an undertaker's bill, including twenty
OF ten useless carriages, and other quite
a needless items, is unexplafnable. Tips
to Ito LEAD should be abolished; tips TO
The LIVING should ut least secure an equiv
aIent-St Louis Globe-Democrat,